


Company of a Ghost

by Markov_Debris



Series: Company Series [11]
Category: Doctor Who (2005), Torchwood
Genre: Canon Temporary Character Death, Episode: s03e12-e13 The Sound of Drums/Last of the Time Lords, M/M, Series Spoilers, Temporal Paradox, Year That Never Was
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-28
Updated: 2017-10-28
Packaged: 2019-01-25 11:24:18
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Major Character Death, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 6
Words: 5,549
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12530224
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Markov_Debris/pseuds/Markov_Debris
Summary: A young man is executed on board the Valliant.  A few months later the hope of the planet is about to die and Jack, the Master and the Doctor all receive a ghostly visit.





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> For Ianto Jones this is the sequel to Company of a Stranger. To the Doctor this is the beginning of the story (if you follow the Company of Ghosts and Strangers Series links you can read the story from his point of view).

The huge conference table had been shoved to one side.  The floor was being ruined by several metal chairs being bolted to it.

Great rings to hold lengths of chain were being fastened next to the chairs.  Four in total, although there was a more comfortable looking chair to one side, but it looked like it was chosen so that the occupant could be restrained within it if necessary.

There is a gap in the middle of the four chairs and great sets of chains are being hung there.  It didn’t take any guesses to know who they are for, but the fact that there are four chairs around them is worrying, that had never happened before.

That, and the set of chains opposite, placed so that whoever is held within them can be seen by the four in the chairs.  They are much sturdier, designed to keep the occupant in the desired position, a captive with an audience.

The Master is gleefully happy as he drags the ancient Doctor from his tented kennel to the left hand chair.  Whatever has happened, whatever is going to happen, has him practically dancing with joy.

The number of leather and chain restrains locking his arms, legs and body in place seem a little like overkill with his ancient body.  The Master checks, then gets a minion to double check that he is completely secure.

The Jones family is dragged in next.  Fear is in their eyes but determination not to let it show, not to give the Master anything, radiates from all of them.

The Master sits Francine next to the Doctor.  She doesn’t look at him, not even when the Master make sure their hands are joined before he finishes securing Martha’s mother to the chair.

It’s a strange touch.  He had been so determined to keep them isolated.  The Doctor could only think that the move is designed to give them pain, especially as he notes that Tish and Clive are restrained so they cannot touch.

Jack is dead when the drag him in.  Grime and blood testify to the agonies he is being put through, that he is baring alone for all their sakes.

The Master is impatient that it is taking them too long to secure Jack.  He dictates a memo about reducing the amount of food fed to Jack by half, perhaps after seeing what it would be like to starve him to death.

Lucy Saxon entered as soon as she is summoned.  She is wearing the red dress which is never a good sign.

The Master makes her wear it when he is about to do particularly nasty things.  He then shows Lucy how good they make him feel, the Doctor knows how nasty that in itself can be, he knows because he was once made to watch.

Lucy and the Master make small talk and laugh and drink Champaign until Jack gasps awake.  The pain and anger on his face at retuning from death increase as he become aware of who is with him.

“Good I thought I’d have to wait all day for you and I couldn’t start without you,” the Master says standing so close to Jack as all the chains vibrate harmlessly.

The ruler of Earth turns blithely away and claps his hands.  A young man in dark clothes, struggling and angry is led in.

He hears Jack’s unintentional gasp and cannot help looking up.  The captain’s face is too carefully schooled, to carefully trying not to feel.

The young man has fire and spirit and curses the Master in Welsh.  There is anger and hunger in the mad Time Lord’s face with every word and struggle.

The Doctor isn’t quite sure what he’d make of that look, if he couldn’t see Lucy sitting in the comfortable chair.  Her face is as carefully schooled as Jack’s, but there is something about this young male prisoner that makes her eyes daggers of envy.

It takes a heavy beating to get him into the chains, his arms and legs splayed to make him vulnerable.  Eager delight shines on the Master’s face as he takes a blade to his clothes, pausing as each is removed to inhale their scent.

Beside him, the rattling of Jack’s chains are getting louder and louder.  The Doctor realised that this is a member of Torchwood, perhaps something more.

The Master stands behind the chained young man, a hand caressing and pulling the prone body to his chest in a way that makes Lucy Saxon draw deep scratches into the arms of her chair.

His other hand fists the longish dark hair turning the prisoner’s head, making those blue eyes look into Jack’s despairing ones.

“Well do you have anything to say to your errant leader?  The one who abandoned you.  The one who made all this possible,” The Master’s voice was very soft like a seducer’s using a past lover’s indiscretion to tempt his new conquest.

The young man’s blue eyes lit up and he smiled.  They looked at Jack with such love that the Doctor finally understood why of all the Time Agent’s team, this was the only one whose end he was going to witness.

“The universe awaits Jack,” he said welcomingly.    

For a moment the immortal smiled back.  Then while the smile stayed, the young eyes glossed.

The Doctor didn’t know how, but he knew the young man had gone.  Hearing the Master’s scream, he knew that his prisoner had gone to.

The Master of Earth went berserk.  First unzipping himself and shoving his cock into a body that didn’t react as he pounded it unprepared.  Then cutting, then burning, then beating but there was still no reaction.

He had medics work on the young man, he even used equipment from the TARDIS but there was no one inside that body anymore and nothing done to it had any effect.

The Master was so completely focused on the inert man that he wasn’t putting a show on any more.  The effect on the audience was still devastating.

Jack couldn’t tear his eyes away, even though he knew there was no one inside that shell.  The Doctor felt Francine squeeze his hand tight, reassuring him that this wasn’t his fault.

All Tish and Clive could do was look away and weep silently.  Lucy Saxon had an expression on her face that said her victory was hollow.

In the end he gave up and ordered his men to throw the corpse away.  He dragged Lucy off somewhere to get satisfaction out of her where he failed with the prisoner.

They were all left where they were to listen to her screams.  It wasn’t until the next day that they were returned to their respective cells.


	2. Chapter One

It is eleven o’clock at night and the death warrant of hope was about to be signed.

The Master cranked up the sound system and opened all the transmission channels on the Valiant’s bridge.  He wanted the entire world to share his joy.

“My people,” he begins grinning like a loon.  “We are on a hard path to victory.  In less than a month we will be ready to take our new empire to the stars.

“But with every hard path, sacrifices have to be made.  And while this one might set us back a little, it will be worth it for the greater good.

“Word has reached me that the traitor, Martha Jones, is in New York.  Ten minutes ago my soldiers and my Toclafane children sealed up the city, nothing, not even a cockroach can get out.

“Not by land, not by sea or air.  Not even by sewer will she escape me now.

“And here is where our sacrifice comes in.  In an hour’s time, the Valiant will be in position.  At midnight I will reduce New York to a giant crater filled with seawater.

“I’ve scheduled the Victory Party for a minute past midnight.  As reward for your sacrifices, all those not about to receive orders will get a day of rest, even if I have to put you all on double shifts later to make sure we keep to our timetable.

“Rejoice my people,” he concluded and turned to those around him.

“A little OTT?” he asked and received a chorus of no’s from all but one, who ignored him.

He did a strange dance as he approached the Doctor.  It was a smug dance that made him look like an idiot, but everyone was too afraid to even smile inside.

The Doctor hadn’t spoken for months.  His ancient face doing its best to mask any reaction.  Somehow this made the Master incredibly pleased.

“Soon your precious Saint Martha will be no more.  It will cause a little set back in my own plans to lose New York after Japan, but I know my workers will love to make it up to me,” the Master said quietly.

The Doctor didn’t look at him and he looked away.

Staring over the other Time Lord’s shoulder the Doctor saw a young man looking directly at him.  No one except the Master and the Jones family looked at him these days.  He was sure he recognised the smart young face within a dark pinstriped suit.

He realised he was staring, realised that the Master had noticed him staring.  He flicked a look to his captor as he turned to see at what the prisoner was looking at.

As the eyes of both Time Lords returned to that spot though, all they could see was empty air.

The Master shrugged.

“Got to go and change.  Crushing the hopes of the planet requires the right wardrobe,” he said ignoring the agreements behind him and sauntered off to his room.

The Doctor’s eyes flickered across the yes men and women as they filed out, but he could not see the young man with the piercing blue eyes.

 

He sat down to stare at nothing again.  The Doctor remembered visiting New York with Martha, he remembered stopping the Daleks and the people of Hooverville.

He had known after the islands of Japan had burned that there was no reasoning with the Master.  He had taken being duped badly, and the people of those islands had paid.

Martha, brilliant, intelligent, Martha, he had given her such a burden to bear.  She was in no less danger on the Earth than aboard the Valiant, but it would be a more urgent danger.

Now it seems as though that burden was ending. 

He had been there when the Master received the news of Martha’s location.  She was in the middle of Manhattan, there was no way for her to leave on foot before midnight.  The mad Time Lord was going to destroy all of New York, not just one island, and Martha would die.

The Doctor was still going to be able to use the countdown though.  He trusted that she had done as he asked completely, he would turn time back, undo all this and hoped that he could still get her back and that she wouldn’t remember her year of hell.

In the darkness a tear rolled down his cheek for Martha and the people of New York.  He didn’t see the young man watching him before he faded away.

 


	3. Chapter Two

It was half past eleven and the shell of a man, mostly referred to at the moment as ‘freak’, but used to be called Captain Jack Harkness, felt nothing.  Not even the pull upon his arms made by his chains registered.

He heard the announcement that Martha, the Doctor’s hope was about to die and he could not even summon pity for those about to suffer with her.  In him emotion was long dead, or it would be if not for the shadow to his right.

Jack Harkness knew he was mad.  The only part of him that really was capable of dying, his heart, was dead so he felt entitled to be mad.

He only put on a show, reacted to whatever games the Master wanted to play, because that was the only thing the one his heart died with would have wanted.

Not that he would have ever wanted Jack in pain, but the former captain knew his suffering prevented that of others.  The more he entertained the Master the less he got satisfaction out of the Jones family, out of the slaves of Earth.

He made his choice for the Doctor, for Martha Jones and her family, for the one his heart had died with.  The one who was now going to be lost forever.

He could hear the Jones family weeping and knew there was no miracle that would save Martha.  The Doctor’s plan was going to fail, there was only thirty minutes left.

Jack turned to the shadow to his right.  The shadow that if he squinted right looked like Ianto Jones.

He was mad so it didn’t bother him that it really did look like Ianto Jones.  Beautiful, smiling gently in his favourite suit.

“I’m so sorry,” Jack whispered.

The shadow moved and Ianto seemed to be by his side in an instant.

The ghost wasn’t cold but a warm presence.  It was a ridiculous thing in the middle of an engine room, but this was not a stifling heat but a caring warmth.

“Don’t give up Jack.  The universe awaits,” beautiful Welsh vowels tried to raise his spirits but he was completely crushed inside.

“Yes it awaits death and destruction,” Jack snarled.

“No Jack, it waits for you to return to life.  For you to explore its beauty and wonder.  For you to find peace and perhaps love.  It hopes for you to find your way home,” Ianto relied caressing the immortal’s cheek.

Each word did not give him strength, it further squashed his heart.  What a stupid child he was if the best his subconscious could come up with is this impossibility.

He didn’t notice that as the ghost’s other hand moved across his body, the ache in his joints faded.  All was so bleak in his soul he felt nothing.

The wise eyes of Ianto Jones had always been able to see into his soul.  It knew the blackness that lurked there, the darkness he now knew not even death could release him from.

For a moment he thought he saw sadness in those eyes.  They were those of a man facing his death sentence, like he had the night Lisa died when he waited for Jack to kill him.

If his heart had not been dead, he would have sensed the danger.  He would have known Ianto Jones was about to do something he wouldn’t like, make a sacrifice that would tear his heart to shreds, but his heart was already in pieces and could not be ripped any further.

“I’m going to prove to you that the universe is waiting for you to reset it.  I’m going to save hope for you.

“You will not see me again in this universe.  Let yourself heal and become new again,” Ianto said softly echoing words he once said of his own rebirth after Lisa’s death.

The dead Welshman pressed his lips against Jack’s.  He closed his eyes as love flooded through him.

For a moment he believed that Ianto Jones had really been in the room with him and not a shadow.  When he opened his eyes he was alone again.  He should have felt desolate, but instead his heart was waiting.


	4. Chapter Three

It was ten minutes to midnight and the Master still hadn’t decided on his suit.  He had had a shower and was now sipping Champaign and listening to soothing music but he couldn’t decide what to wear.

“I rather like the Saville Row suit with the teal green shirt and the deep purple tie.  Makes you look very diabolical.”

The Master spun around dropping the contents of his hands to face the familiar voice. 

“Ianto Jones,” he breathed looking at the ghost of the Welshman who was as handsome as ever in a dark pinstripe with blood red shirt.

“Guards,” he called.

“Well if you wish me to leave,” Ianto said and began to fade.

“No!” he called out reaching out a hand.

He was aware of the door opening and a head peering around but his eyes never left the young man.  The guard saw no one and wondered what the alarm was all about.

“Sir?” he asked politely.

“I am not to be disturbed, not for anything,” the Master ordered.

“We’re going to be in position over New York in ten minutes...” said the guard cautiously.

The Master leapt over furniture to get to the door.

“I am not to be disturbed for anything, you hear me anything,” he screamed shoving the man out of the door and locking it firmly behind him.

The turned back to the Welshman who now stood a few feet behind him.

“You’re here, you’re finally here.  And you’re dead,” The Master complained as the hand he raised to the young man’s arm passed right through.

Ianto raised an eyebrow pointing out the obvious fact that of course he was dead as the Master had taken the trouble to kill him.

“It worked,” he breathed.

“Yes it worked,” Ianto replied sadly.

A look of pure glee spread over the Master’s face.  He gave the young man an expectant look, rubbing his hands together eagerly.

Ianto slipped the suit jacket from his shoulders and it disappeared the instant it left his fingers.  He merely had to slip the knot of the tie before the Time Lord was excitedly moving again.

The ghost waited patiently as the Time Lord sat down at the foot of the huge bed.  He folded up into the lotus position and began to relax his breathing.

He had never done his before.  The Master was incredibly surprised to find his centre of calm for long enough for his mind to leave his body behind.

The Time Lord’s spirit stood in the diabolical suit that Ianto had chosen for him.  His own body, sitting in a towel, completely forgotten as he reached out and touched the ghost’s arm firmly.

“You’re mine you know that don’t you?  You’ve been mine since the moment I saw you,” the Time Lord said looking at the ghost with dark eyes.

“Yes Master,” Ianto replied causing the grin to widen.

“Then you shouldn’t have let the freak touch you,” he retorted suddenly angry.

“I did my duty for Queen and Country,” Ianto intoned and the Time Lord relaxed a little.

“Ah, she was scary wasn’t she?”

“Yes Master,” Ianto said and the Time Lord quivered slightly.

“And that’s all it was, was it?  Your duty?” he demanded.

“What else would it be?” Ianto replied defensive and horrified.  “I couldn’t... I couldn’t....”

“It’s alright,” the Master soothed.  “I shouldn’t have left you in her clutches, who knows what she did to you.”

Ianto hung his head and the Time Lord caressed his cheek tenderly.  The Time Lord closed his eyes and began to breathe deeply, tension and stress washed out of his spirit and the body sitting unnoticed behind them.

When he opened his eyes though, they were full of dark hunger.

He crossed the distance between them and began to greedily kiss the young man before him.  He didn’t rip at the clothes as they vanished beneath his touch.

He shoved the ghost onto the bed and paused only to pull his cock out before yanking the Welshman’s legs apart and pushing inside.  He could feel the reluctance, feel the sudden fight, but that’s what he wanted.

He wanted Ianto to resist him as much as he wanted Ianto to comply.  He wanted to inflict pain and be given pleasure.

He wanted to dominate, wanted the young man to acknowledge him as his Master.  He wanted him to know who truly owned him, not that freak.

Ianto wept beneath him.  He was making a sacrifice for his planet, though it should no longer have been his concern.

He had known what would happen but did not expect the horror and fear that went with this, he just had to act.  Seeing Jack so broken, Ianto knew there was nothing of himself truly left anymore.

Jack’s heart had been dead but now he was providing the hope to get it beating again.  His own heart had barely had the strength to beat alone before the Master had captured and killed him.   All that had been left was now dead in Jack’s chest, where he left it waiting for hope.

The last spark of love left in his heart, on either side of the grave, brought him here.  This was the only thing within his power to do, make the sacrifice, save hope, save Martha Jones, save Jack.

He wept because he knew that was what the Master wanted.  Inside he was as dead as his body now.

He kept hold only of the mission he gave himself as he changed his attitude to suite the monster’s desires and expectations.

Ianto Jones was saving hope.


	5. Chapter Four

It was five minutes past midnight and over twenty-five hours had passed since hope received its death sentence.

In all the cities of the world, except New York, workers had enjoyed their day off.  They had been concerned about the announcement of Martha Jones’ death sentence, but they all knew she was not their hope.

Their hope was a man called the Doctor and they waited for a countdown.  So they pretended to have reluctant parties and some grieved a little, but in truth they were so tired that they enjoyed their day of rest.

In New York they had waited for death that never came.  The delay spurred them into action and they used many decoys, made many sacrifices of their own, but they found a way to get Martha Jones out of the city.

They would spread word of her escape later.  For the rest of their twenty-four hour reprieve, they celebrated getting her out and having another day of life.

In the control room of the Valiant the Doctor watched as a young man he had seen die months ago sat down in front of him.  He recognised him now, recognised the lifelessness of those eyes.

“You shouldn’t have done that,” the Doctor croaked.

They were the first words he had spoken in months.  The first words he had wanted to say since he realised the Toclofane were the humans of Utopia.

“Because I finally became a whore?  What does it matter to me, I’m dead and it isn’t as though I was ever of importance.  My body lies in an open mass grave with a thousand other corpses and wild animals have almost completely eaten my flesh.

“She got out.  She still walks the Earth.  I’ve been dead a long time but she lives, hope lives,” his voice contained a slight lilt but the words were emotionless.

The Doctor waited.  He knew there was a reason for the young man’s visit and it was not to tell him this.

“I worked for Torchwood London before I came to Cardiff.  I was at the battle,” he said looking into the Time Lord’s eyes for a reaction and he got one.

“No, I wasn’t part of the Ghost Shift project.  I was a researcher and I was gifted.  The Battle destroyed those gifts, though some came back,” he had a slight smile but it was so bitter the Doctor could practically taste it.

“Archangel didn’t work on me.  Before he led me out here for you to watch me die, he repaired me.  He just didn’t know I was capable of leaving.

“But I was trapped as he intended.  I am a ghost in the Archangel network and when he wakes up, and realises what I have done, he will come in here and destroy me,” Ianto said coldly.  He raised a hand to still any of the Time Lord’s protests.

“He _noticed_ ,” the emphasis was just right for the Doctor to realise what the young man meant.  “Just a nagging doubt but now he will think it’s me.  Take your mind out of the network as he wipes me from it and insert yourself back in as he brings it back on-line.

“He will test it and believe you are part of the base coding.  You can finish your work without fear.  Remember though, he will expect you to try something.”

Whatever belated words formed in the Doctor’s mind where lost in the terrible scream of anger.  The Master was awake.

An almost genuine smile spread across the young man’s face.  He stroked the Time Lord’s aged cheek then stood and looked down at the Doctor fondly.

“When this is over let him find happiness,” was the last request before he was gone.

The Time Lord was too stunned for tears.  He knew from the brief light in the ghost’s eyes that ‘him’ was Jack.

The Master stormed in wearing only a black silk dressing gown.  He ordered everyone out and locked the doors behind him.

He raced up to the controls of the Archangel network and began jabbing them.  The Doctor did as the ghost asked, he withdrew his mind and returned it as instructed.

He felt the Master probe and feel satisfied that all was as it should be.  Then he felt him probe again and realised he was looking for something that was no longer there.

Silently the ruler of Earth plodded down the steps, his body slumped in misery.  He crawled into the Doctor’s tent and wrapped his arms around his greatest enemy and began to cry.

“He always made the drums silent,” the Master sobbed after a few minutes. 

The Doctor just stopped himself from asking “Always?” and remained silent as he realised the right question was “Who?”

 “Archangel didn’t work on him.  He noticed the discrepancies in my history long before that damn journalist.

“Torchwood pulled me in, I hadn’t heard of them before, shame on you with Queen Vic.

“I used Archangel to persuade my interrogators they were wrong, that I could help them.  I found out about their psi enhancement program and told them that I knew a few things that would help.

“I wanted him before I even saw him.  He stepped into the room and the drumming stopped.  He knew exactly how bad I am, they had to strap him down for me to treat him because I wasn’t going to let him say no.

“I could tell Archangel was never going to work on him but I used what I could from him to improve the network and snare more people.  I made him forget all about his research into me, added triggers to blind him.

“I set the dormant pathways in his mind to open, he had such potential, and I wanted him to have it all.  I thought...”

The Doctor didn’t need the rest of the sentence.  The Master had thought to try and recreate the telepathic unity they had with their people, but that was impossible, even with one who was rift tainted like the young man he had seen executed.

“I knew I had to wait.  I had a political career to think of, I couldn’t risk a scandal no matter how much I longed to.  So I left unconscious triggers so that he would come to me.”

The Doctor closed his eyes and willed the tears not to fall.  As the Master talked and wept he clawed gently at the Doctor’s suit jacket. 

He had witnessed what the Master did to Lucy; felt that he had done to the ghost tonight.  It was not a fate the ancient Time Lord would wish on anyone, whether they were capable of justifying submission in their own mind or not.

The hand pawing at him became an angry fist.

“Hartman was supposed to protect him.  He wasn’t meant to get damaged.  He was mine not theirs or that freaks to hurt, or breathe the energies of the vortex into.”

The Doctor still remembered feeling the death of his people as if it were five minutes ago.  If the Master had induced similar abilities in the Welshman, then to survive Canary Warf, the young man must have damaged his own mind to stop the feeling of others pain.

“Why wouldn’t he come to me?  When I was Master of Earth he was meant to come to me, meant to silence the drums,” the Time Lord said softly.

The Master wasn’t capable of understanding.  He hadn’t seen the look in the young man’s eyes as he spoke his last words and last request.

A power greater than the Master’s mind games held sway over the Welshman.  Even last night, the young man only succumbed finally to the renegade Time Lord because of that power.

The ghost was in love with Jack Harkness and that was stronger than the Master’s will.

“Will the drums ever go away?”

The question went unanswered.  The Doctor knew the answer but was not prepared to give it.

He merely brought his arms up and rocked the only other Time Lord in existence as he cried.

_You are not unimportant whoever you were.  You’re the only victim the Master has ever mourned for.  It might not have been your intent but there is a different hope for the universe now._


	6. Epilogue

Ianto Jones wrapped his arms around himself cursing the cold and the high mountain air of the Himalaya’s.  Personally he thought this was a wild goose chase.

It had been months since the incident with Abbaddon, why would energy reading show up now?  And half way across the world?  He knew he was a getting left behind by the others but he felt that he needed to be cautions.

They should have ignored it.  They were not supposed to take instructions from MP’s.  The Himalaya’s was more UNIT’s jurisdiction that theirs anyway.

Right now he should be cataloguing artefacts or watching the election coverage.  He didn’t really care which party won as long as it wasn’t Harold Saxon’s new one, that man just made his skin crawl.

A sudden wave of nausea hit him making him stop.  He took deep breaths wondering if it was altitude sickness but it wasn’t working.

“Ah that’s better.”

Ianto opened his eyes, blinking through his shades, looking for the source of the familiar voice.  He was alone and wondered if he had imagined the words.

One thing he was sure of, the nausea had passed.  He did a quick mental check and found everything in order except one thing.

He felt like he was being watched, there on the edge of his awareness.  He looked around again but he was alone on the mountainside.

“Oi tea boy get your arse in gear,” Owen’s loud voice called him back to the mission.

The medic was just coming around some rocks on the path ahead.

“Right, just coming,” Ianto replied heading up the trail and wishing he had though to put on a second jumper.

Owen looked worried at him for a moment, then draped an arm around the tall Welshman to steer him in front him.

Just before he rounded the corner he looked back over the other man’s head but there was still nothing there.

 

Hidden behind a rock, the Doctor breathed a sigh of relief and switched off the telepathic transmitter.

The last of the damage done by the Master, damage he couldn’t touch until the start of year that never was had passed, was now healed.

Ianto Jones would keep his awareness and if he chose some of his empathic powers.  All the subservient conditioning was gone.  The blocks between him and the rest of the ‘gifts’ the other Time Lord had given him were now firmly in place while the self-inflicted damage was healing nicely.  Those changes couldn’t be undone, but it was the Welshman’s choice to embrace them or ignore them.

He wondered why he hadn’t thought of it earlier but when he left Ianto Jones in Cardiff with the year that never was to face, he needed to distance himself.  Needed to get used to being alone again.

If he hadn’t had to divert a crisis with one of the Archangel satellites four years from now, he would never have thought of using one of their transmitters to undo the last of the Master’s cruelty.

“Make each other happy,” the Doctor wished out loud to the young man’s disappearing back.

As he walked back to the TARDIS he found himself thinking of Astrid Peth.  Now though he could think of her without the tremendous ache, how he could adventure without the crippling fear that had been there before he met Ianto Jones properly.

“You would have liked him Astrid.  He’s a bit like you.  The universe shines through him but life had made him think he is ordinary and unimportant.”

He sighed and looked up at the sky.  For a moment he thought he could see the stars through the day lit clouds shining blue, but then it was gone.

With a sad smile he opened the door to the TARDIS and set off alone on another adventure.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope that you liked this story.  
> If you follow the Company or Awaiting Universe Series links you can read the missing conversation between the Doctor and Tosh from Chapter Twenty-one of Company of a Stranger. If you follow the Company of Ghosts and Strangers link you will be able to read Company of a Stranger.  
> HOWEVER, if you do not wish to read the conversation and want to skip to the next story I should warn you (and I will issue the same warning at the end of the Conversation so apologies if you end up reading this twice), that the One Shot that is connected to these stories, Puck the Cupid, is the next in the series link for Company of a Stranger, Company of Ghosts and Strangers and the Company Series. Chronologically for Ianto however the next story is Returning to the Company (which will be posted soon) and that will be the next story in the Awaiting Universe. I will put Puck the Cupid and the Epilogue for these stories in the Awaiting Universe at the appropriate time.


End file.
